Fear and Courage
by GoddessOfTechnology
Summary: Jack Frost, the winter spirit. Pitch Black, the boogeyman. For centuries, it's been this way. But now, after one of North's spells goes cruelly wrong, suddenly there's a fun-loving boogeyboy, and a fear-mongering winter spirit with an ax to grind...(Rated T for violence and cursing)
1. Prologue

**A/N: Guys...I need someone to attach a boxing glove on a spring to my computer, so it can punch me in the face every time I start a new story.**

 **Like, seriously. This is getting excessive. I already have five works in progress, I don't need another one.**

 **That said, hope you enjoy this.**

 **Warnings: This story contains violence, cursing, and depictions of attempted suicides (key word being attempted).**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own RotG. Also, cover image is a drawing by Gustave Dore and is in the public domain.  
**

* * *

He walked alone, a perfect melody of fear and courage, darkness and light, hated by all and loved by none. Walking on the thin edge between good and bad, love and hate, he was thus rejected by both sides, with only the dark coils of nightmare sand and the shadows to serve as his companions.

Some, most, would have gone mad, had they been in his shoes. His love for children was equally balanced by their fear of him, his yearning for friendship negated by the despise all spirits held towards him. Strangely enough, however, in his time alone he did not either succumb to madness or to bitter hate. It was brutally unfair, that all living beings should judge him based on the power he wielded, but such was life, and he could either get used to it or suffer.

He was only seven years old, and yet he already felt much older.

His black shoes click-clacked sinisterly against the wet pavement as he walked, and he made sure to strategically avoid the streetlights as he kept to the shadows. Some part of his mind, the same one that knew his name, told him that light would be hurtful to him, and while he had no way of knowing if this was really the case, he preferred not to take any unnecessary risks.

The shadows whispered to him as he walked, telling him of things they had seen and heard, and he felt strangely comforted by their presence. They meant safety and security, company and protection, and as pathetic as it may sound, they were his only friends. Yes, he trusted the shadows, would trust them with his own life, however sad a life it may be.

Suddenly, as confidently as he'd walked before, he now stopped. The shadows whispered into his ears tales of a hurting child, and although he knew his appearance would only frighten the little one, he refused to even think of not helping. The child needed him, and only him, to help.

He started walking again, his rapid gait soon shifting into a sprint, and then into a run, shoes click-clacking impossibly fast against the cobblestones as he looked for a large-enough shadow that he could travel through, his fragile grasp over his powers still not permitting him to teleport though anything except the darkest of shadows. At last, he found a suitable one, and he dove into it, the tendrils of darkness wrapping protectively around him as they swallowed him and he faded into black.

He reappeared on a rooftop, in the shadow of the moonless night. It took a few moments before he found the child, and what he saw both shocked and saddened him.

A teenage girl, no older than fifteen, stood at the roof's edge, navy-blue skirt fluttering feebly in the light breeze of the spring night. He could hear her sobs as her shoulders shook, and with a shake of her head, the girl extended one foot over the edge, ready to fall to her death. Without a minute of hesitation, he focused on pouring fear into the girl's soul. Through the haze of irrelevant fears the poor girl was experiencing, he noted a crippling fear of heights, and with the tenacity of a limpet he latched onto that, bringing it to the surface and swelling it.

It worked. The girl made a queer sound between a sob and a cough as she tremulously stepped away from the edge, still shaking her head. When she spoke, the German lilting off her tongue, her voice sounded choked and terrified. _"I'm scared...I'm scared..."_

She turned away from the edge, tears pouring down her cheeks, gray eyes filled with fear and self-hate as she spoke to herself. _"I am a coward, a coward!"_

She crumpled, then, falling to her knees and burying her face in her hands, body racked with sobs. Unsure what to do, he stepped out of the shadows, walking hesitantly towards her, his shoes click-clacking against the rooftop.

As he kneeled by her, she looked up, eyes hazy before they focused properly on him. When they finally did, they widened in fear. _"Who are you?"_

The same part of his mind that knew his name took over, and he responded in her language, while as yet uncertain as to how he knew it. His voice held a queer accent, somewhere between British and American, as he held her attention. _"I am the Boogeyman."_

If it were even possible, her eyes widened further, and she scrambled backwards. _"You are real?!"_

 _"Of course. Have no fear, I will not hurt you."_

She looked doubtful, yet intrigued. Glancing back at the edge, she seemed to come to a realization. " _You saved my life..."_

 _"Yes."_

 _"Why?"_

He struggled to find the correct words. _"You have a whole life in front of yourself. It's not right that you should die so young."_

 _"For the Boogeyman, you're very kind."_

He grinned. _"Looks can be deceiving."_

She cracked a small, broken smile. " _That is true."_

He smiled back, relieved that she was feeling better. Some of the frenzy seemed to have left her gray eyes, and now she looked less despairing and depressed. Still, the problem had not been fixed entirely, and he still had a job to finish. As gently as he could, he asked, _"Do you have friends? People that can help you?"_

She looked down, all traces of a smile vanished from her face. _"One. Only one."_

 _"It's better than nothing. Can you speak to them?"_

 _"Yes, but..."_

 _"But?"_

Silence.

 _"Please, talk to them."_

 _"But...I don't want to. This is my problem."_

 _"...For me? Please?"_

She chuckled at his puppy-eyed look, and wiped her face with the back of her hand. " _...For you, then...Thank you, Boogeyman._ "

He smiled, and stepped back into the shadows, ready to leave, certain that now she would be safe. Before he could vanish, however, she grabbed the sleeve of his black jacket. " _Wait! Please, what is your name?_ "

For some reason, the question made him laugh, and he answered, smirking at the name which both did and did not fit, a forgotten memory of an equally forgotten past.

 _"My name...is Jack Frost."_

* * *

 **A/N:**

 **It's...okay? I think? Maybe? It'll get better from here, I swear...**

 **As to why a teenage girl can see the Boogeyman...well, I'm not entirely sure myself, but I suppose she has some sort of mental illness of some kind (which would also explain why she wanted to commit suicide). This is only speculation, of course.  
**


	2. Chapter 1

**A/N: Little foray into the past, now. Don't worry, it'll probably be the only one.  
**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own RotG.**

* * *

 _"It's a thief in the night  
To come and grab you  
It can creep up inside you  
And consume you  
A disease of the mind  
It can control you  
It's too close for comfort_

 _Throw on your brake lights_  
 _We're in the city of wonder_  
 _Ain't gonna play nice_  
 _Watch out, you might just go under_  
 _Better think twice_  
 _Your train of thought will be altered_  
 _So if you must falter be wise_

 _Your mind is in Disturbia  
It's like the darkness in the light  
Disturbia  
Am I scaring you tonight?  
Disturbia  
Ain't used to what you like  
Disturbia  
 **Disturbia** "-"Disturbia" _by Rihanna. _  
_

* * *

 _{Seven years prior}_

North, for all his skills, was not much of a wizard.

Oh, he had his merits, certainly. Enchanting ice sculptures to fly and move was not especially simple a task, and certain parts of the Pole worked mostly based off his magic spells, such as the protective wards and the Northern Lights. However, his knowledge of magic was patchy at best, and whenever he tried to do something new, things had a tendency to go wrong in the most hilariously awful ways possible.

(He would never forget that time when he'd accidentally cast a spell on a cat, which had then swelled to enormous heights and had attempted to eat both him and his horse. _That_ had been unpleasant, to say the least.)

However, his admittedly fragmentary knowledge of magic would not have posed much of a problem, if he only knew his limits. North had a love for dabbling in new spells and potions and magic, and no amount of failed experiments deterred him. Fires, floodings, general chaos and anarchy, all quailed in importance when compared to the wonder of discovering what he could do with his magic.

...Even if what he did was rarely what he'd set out to achieve.

Like now.

The Cossack frowned contemplatively at the charred stain discoloring his floorboards. A mere ten minutes ago, in the exact spot where the stain was now, Jack Frost had been standing. Now, thanks to a spell that had gone horribly wrong, he was stranded Moon knows where and possibly powerless.

How on Earth a simple magic-altering spell had gone this wrong North had no idea. He hadn't checked very carefully, but he was fairly certain that the spell matrix didn't contain the slightest inkling of teleportation magic. He must have screwed up the spell pretty badly for Jack to have up and disappeared…

Unless...no. Jack wasn't dead. The centers of the Guardians were all connected, the Oath binding them in soul as well as in friendship and camaraderie, and Jack's center was still active. North would have felt it if Jack had been killed, would have sensed Jack's death, and so would have all the other Guardians. No, Jack was not dead.

If he wasn't dead, however, than where was he?

* * *

When he finally woke up, his primary thought was _'North is going to regret this.'_

Honestly, the man needed to learn what sarcasm was. Jack hadn't meant it when he said "Oh, sure, I'd love to become one of your magical experiments and possibly be disemboweled and/or killed", and he thought that the sarcasm behind that statement had been glaringly obvious.

Not obvious enough for North, apparently, who'd then proceeded to grin delightedly before casting his spell, not giving Jack time to protest. Now, Jack was stuck in a dark, damp alleyway Moon knew where, without his staff.

Groaning, he sat up, feeling very irritated with the world in general and North in particular. When he got back to the Pole, he and North were going to have _words_ -

"...What."

He stared uncomprehendingly at his shadowy gray hand.

His hand. Was gray. His hand was _gray._

With a sickening squelch of dread, he realized his clothing was no longer covered in frost.

He rose to his feet shakily, jumping at every suspicious movement, his skin crawling with the unsettling sensation of something being deeply wrong. The pieces of his soul held together like a badly-solved jigsaw puzzle, with some pieces forced together and others barely connected, some cracked and broken and others slightly dented, the parts mashed roughly together but not making any logical sense.

He stepped forward, a distant horror filling his heart as he suddenly realized just what exactly was wrong with him. It was obvious, with the way that the shadows danced around him, whispering to him in a lilting chant he'd never heard before. It was doubly obvious with the nightmare sand swirling around his bare feet.

Jack Frost, bringer of snowballs and fun times, Spirit of Winter, and Guardian of Fun…

...was the Nightmare King.

"...I'm going to _murder_ him."

* * *

After his eighteenth elaborate plan to murder North in the most ridiculously complicated and painful way possible, Jack was forced to admit that he was lost.

He'd been wandering, cursing under his breath in a variety of different languages as he alternated between concocting murderous schemes and trying to figure out just where the hell he'd been stranded. Now, though, he had to accept that he had no clue where he was.

Well. This sucked.

He raked his pale gray hand through his messy black hair as he considered his options. He was sorely tempted to use his new powers to jump through a shadow portal, as he'd seen Pitch do a couple of times, but so far pride and stubbornness had prevented him. Heck, it was already humiliating enough that nightmare sand followed him about whether he liked it or not, he didn't need to become _more_ intimate with Pitch's twisted powers, thank you very much.

It seemed to be about as pleasant as it would be optional, however. He couldn't fly (and wasn't _that_ in a league of suckiness all on its own, Jack _liked_ flying dammit), and he didn't really know of any other methods of transport he could use. He supposed he could always wait until Sandy turned up to spread dreams around this town, but that could take hours, and Jack really wanted his powers back as soon as was conceivably possible.

After taking a moment to swallow his pride, Jack stepped into a darkened alleyway.

It was a cacophony of whispers and mutterings, and Jack needed a moment to regain his bearings. He'd never heard the shadows speak before, and the experience was mildly disorienting, for from every side they chirped like birds, their voices an ethereal hiss at the back of his mind.

Shivering, the former winter spirit wandered deeper into the shadows, some part of his mind coaxing him into further darkness. The shadows were frightening, but also strangely alluring, and in an almost trance-like state he wandered further and further away from the light.

When he could barely see more than two feet in front of himself, the voices suddenly became clearer and more comprehensible. While before they had been a confusing mix of syllables, now he could understand each whisper and every mutter with terrifying clarity.

What he heard scared him.

 _"_ _Prince, king, ruler, ours forever, power, so much power, be ours, made for this, ours, ours, oursours_ _ **ours**_ _!"_

He stumbled backwards, snapped out of his trance, glazed silver-gold eyes suddenly focused and alert. An instinctive terror rearing its ugly head, he turned his back on the shadows, rushing towards the dim glow of the streetlights he'd left behind.

 _"_ _No!"_

A coil of nightmare sand lashed around his ankle, tripping him and sending him flailing to the ground. More tendrils of sand darted in from every side, grasping everywhere they found a purchase, clutching at his arms and legs and chest and hair as they pinned him down, thrashing, to the pavement.

"Get off me!"

If anything, his shouts only made them tighten their grip. Frantically, he tried to order them away, but they ignored him.

How did Pitch _deal_ with these things?

The chant of "ours" grew louder and louder, and he noted with fear in his heart that more nightmare sand was swirling around him in a cocoon of darkness. He writhed frantically, panicking, but was ultimately helpless as the darkness engulfed him.

Gradually, the world faded into black, and he knew no more.

* * *

 **A/N: The bit with North and the giant cat is a detail from book!verse I decided to add on a whim. What, it's funny...**

 **Jack's slight OOC-ness is due to Pitch's magic screwing with his brain. As the story progresses, boogeyboy!Jack will become more bad-tempered, sassy, and rude.**

 **...Thoughts?**


End file.
